‘You’re saying it’s like becoming… part of God?’ Hal’s mind spun.
‘Everything rests with you, Brother of Dragons.’ Dian Cecht was grim-faced. ‘Only the king can defeat the Devourer of All Things. Only he can save my people and guide your own race back to the upward path. And only you can call him.’
In a moment of utter clarity, Hal understood exactly what his sacrifice would mean: he would be converted into energy, a wavelength, a thought, a message to the past and the future. And then he would be gone, absorbed into the background energy of the universe. It was the ultimate sacrifice. Yet for the briefest time, he would be a conscious part of the underlying intelligence of Existence, and he would be able to search the twists and turns of reality for the man who would be the ultimate representation of the Pendragon Spirit. The Champion of Life, the only one who could defeat the embodiment of Anti-Life. And Hal would be a part of that champion, and a part of all the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons who had ever existed across the millennia.
After all his failures and his weaknesses, here was his chance to redeem himself, the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find the true strength inside him. Briefly, he had a vision of himself flashing back across time, appearing to Poussin to plant the message that he would eventually find in his real life, manifesting to the Dilettante Society and all the others he would guide so that at this point in time he would have already assimilated the information he needed to make his choice.
In truth, he had made the decision long ago.
The doorway was crystal clear now, manifested and held in place by the combined power of the Caretaker and the Fabulous Beast.
‘Will you accept this quest, Brother of Dragons?’ the Caretaker asked.
Hal smiled and stepped towards the light.
‘ We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’ Martin Luther King, Jr.